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Questions From Readers

● Just who is referred to by “those under the ground” at Philippians 2:10?—R. T., U.S.A.

At Philippians 2:10, 11 we read: “In the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground, and every tongue should openly confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Those referred to here as “under the ground” are those that Jesus said were in the memorial tombs awaiting a resurrection. (John 5:28, 29) Eventually all these will be raised from the dead and, to continue to live, will have to recognize Christ as Lord, to God’s glory. Only those in the memorial tombs or in the memory of God could be said to exist even though under the ground, asleep in death. The wicked dead, who will not be awakened, do not exist; they are extinct.—Ps. 37:10.

Pertinent here are Paul’s words at Ephesians 1:9, 10, for they refer to the same thing: “It is according to his good pleasure which he purposed in himself for an administration at the full limit of the appointed times, namely, to gather all things together again in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.”

● What is the meaning of the expression “the plowman shall overtake the reaper” as found at Amos 9:13, RS?—J. G., British Honduras.

Amos 9:13, according to the New World Translation, reads: “‘Look! There are days coming,’ is the utterance of Jehovah, ‘and the plowman will actually overtake the harvester, and the treader of grapes, the carrier of the seed; and the mountains will actually drip with sweet wine, and the very hills will all find themselves melting.’” Ancient Israel was primarily an agricultural land. For the plowman to overtake the harvester would indicate such a large harvest that it had not all been gathered in when the time for sowing came around. Likewise the treading of grapes and the sowing of seed would overlap because of the abundant grape harvest.

This prophecy has application to the workers in Jehovah’s spiritual paradise in which the New World society of Jehovah’s witnesses find themselves. It foretells the great prosperity enjoyed by Jehovah’s witnesses today in keeping with the prophetic promise stated in the Mosaic law at Leviticus 26:5: “Your threshing will certainly reach to your grape gathering, and the grape gathering will reach to the sowing of seed, and you will indeed eat your bread to the full and dwell in security in your land.” Proof of this can be seen by the annual report as published in The Watchtower.